It’s the end of the week once again, ladies and gentlemen, which means it’s time to look back at the top five news stories of the week. Welcome all to the Weekly Wrap-Up. Down below you’ll find short summaries, but if you’re interested in reading the full story, simply click the news title. Feel free to let us know if you agree or disagree with our choices, and if you have suggestions for future entries, please email our Sr. News Manager Jeremy Tyler at jeremy.tyler@bagogames.com

Lets go!

Number 5

Julie Uhrman announced yesterday that Ouya units will finally begin to be shipped to backers beginning March 28th, a long time before the official launch of the console, which is currently set for June.

As well as this, interesting news broke from the company developing to open-sourced console in that Kellee Santiago, co-founder of Thatgamecompany that worked on the craze which is Journey has joined the company where she will lead developer relations.

When speaking of her new position Kellee Santiago wasted no time in stressing how different and revolutionary the Ouya console could be and what a difference it can make for developers:

“This is the first console company that really understands how important it is to remove the barriers to development.”

Number 4

After the fiasco of the PlayStation 3 not featuring cross-game chat then it was only going to be a matter of time before Sony was to right its wrongs and confirm that the PlayStation 4 would support cross-game chat, finally allowing players regardless of game tastes the ability to chat away to their hearts content.

The feature was supposed to be included with the PlayStation 3 through an updated firmware updated but it soon became apparent that it wasn’t Sony being difficult but it was the actual hardware that simply wouldn’t allow the feature to be implemented.

This meant that Sony gamers were unable to enjoy what must be a key component of the success of Xbox Live; the “party”, where numerous gamers can chat together whilst playing completely different games.

It’s nice to see Sony putting such a focus behind the online functionality of the PlayStation 4. Does news like this get you even more excited for the next-generation of PlayStation?

Number 3

Troubled gaming publisher and developer, THQ, is auctioning several of its titles including Darksiders, Homeworld, MX and Red Faction. Licensed titles being sold off include Worms and Marvel Super Hero Squad whilst other published titles such as Destroy All Humans! and Big Beach Sports are also being auctioned off.

Titles will be listed by April 1 and in order to be sold, bids must be made on or before April 15. Any unsold titles will be placed up for a second round of auctioning.

Other THQ titles auctioned off so far include the WWE game franchise by Take Two, South Park by Ubisoft, Metro by Koch Media and Homefront by Crytek.

Number 2

President of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, has gone on record by telling The Guardian (A UK tabloid) that the next PlayStation, the PlayStation 4, could offer multiple subscription levels to users. If this sounds similar to Microsoft’s Xbox Live subscription model then hold onto your hat because Sony might be considering in implementing a similar thing if this report is to be believed.

In the article, Shuhei Yoshida tells the Guardian:

“As more and more services and contents become available digitally, we’ll have more of an option to create attractive packages. So hypothetically we can look at different models–like a cable TV company. We could have gold, silver or platinum levels of membership, something like that. We can do subscription services when we have more content–especially now that we have the Gaikai technology available. With one subscription you have access to thousands of games–that’s our dream.”

Number 1

After the leaked poster that all but revealed the next Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft has gone ahead and officially announced the game themselves with new artwork (and presumably box art).

The image confirms the new setting, hero and systems we can expect it to release on –Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Wii U. More information is set to hit on Monday, March 4th.

Honorable Mentions

This week had a lot of big news and the news staff and I found it hard to narrow it down to the usual five stories. Here are some of the articles that didn’t make the top 5, but were still important, nonetheless:

If you missed out on the big news items this week, you can check out our weekly podcast and get an audio update of this week’s madness from our podcasting team. Listen to us as we talk about some things seriously and a few other things not so much. We guarantee this episode will make you shake your fist at times and nod your head at others.

Kyree has always been around video games to some degree, but he never truly fell in love with them until the grand old age of 11. When not writing for his second home, BagoGames, you can find him lurking on Twitter (@Kyree_Kero) or at Leviathyn.com.